October 14 — Still on picket. This morning I saw a captive balloon anchored over the Yankee camp in the direction of Harper’s Ferry. Balloon reconnoitering seems to be a safe way of making observations of an enemy’s forces, movements, and encampments, and where the country is level and not too much wooded the information obtainable from such an elevated altitude is as valuable and correct, if not more so, than could be acquired by a regular reconnoissance on terra firma; and is accompanied with less trouble and danger. The balloon I saw this morning was about four miles from our post and looked to be about a thousand feet from the ground.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
October 14, Tuesday. The Secretary of State sends me an important dispatch from Stuart, British Chargé d’Affaires during the absence of Lord Lyons, in which he undertakes to object, unofficially, to the purchase by the Government of the steamer Bermuda, a prize captured last April, until the judgment of the court shall have been pronounced. Seward gives in, cringes under these supercilious and arrogant claims and assumptions. It sometimes appears to me there is a scheme among some of the legations to see how far they can impose upon our Secretary of State by flattery and pretension. I have written a reply which will be likely, I think, to settle Mr. Stuart, and possibly annoy Mr. Seward, who, since the affair of the Trent, when at first he took high and untenable ground, has lost heart and courage, and is provokingly submissive to British exactions. I hope he will let Stuart have my letter. It touches on some points which I wish to force on the attention of the English Government.
Stanton read a dispatch from General Pope, stating that the Indians in the Northwest had surrendered and he was anxious to execute a number of them. The Winnebagoes, who have not been in the fight, are with him, and he proposes to ration them at public expense through the winter. He has, Stanton says, destroyed the crops of the Indians, etc. I was disgusted with the whole thing; the tone and opinions of the dispatch are discreditable. It was not the production of a good man or a great one. The Indian outrages have, I doubt not, been horrible; what may have been the provocation we are not told. The Sioux and Ojibbeways are bad, but the Winnebagoes have good land which white men want and mean to have.
The evening papers contain a partisan speech from John Van Buren,[1] in which he introduces a letter of General Scott, dated the 3d of March, 1861, addressed to Seward. It was familiar. I have heard it read twice by General S. himself, the first time, directly after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, in the War Department, but I had the impression it was addressed to the President instead of Seward. For what reason it was placed in the hands of John Van Buren I do not understand. The General thought much of this letter, and wrote it, as I supposed, to influence the then incoming administration, but it was wholly inconclusive when decision was wanted. He was in those days listened to by both the President and Secretary of State, and his indecisive policy had probably an effect on them as well as others. I have since come to the conclusion that the General’s own course was shaped by Seward, and that, after Seward put him aside, took Meigs into his confidence, and got up the military expedition to Pickens without his knowledge, General Scott, in justification of himself and to show his own views independent of the Secretary of State, was decidedly for the Union.
His influence in the early months of the Administration was, in some respects, unfortunate. It was a maze of uncertainty and indecision. He was sincerely devoted to the Union and anxious that the Rebellion should be extinguished, yet shrank from fighting. Seward had brought him into his policy of meeting aggression with concession. Blockade some of the worst cities, or shut up their ports, guard them closely, collect duties on shipboard, or “let the wayward sisters go in peace.”[2] His object seemed to be to avoid hostilities, but to throw the labor of the conflict on the Navy if there was to be war. He still strove, however, as did Seward, to compromise difficulties by a national convention to remodel the Constitution, though aware the Democrats would assent to nothing. General Scott inaugurated the system of frontiers, and did not favor the advance of our armies into the rebellious States. The time for decisive action, he thought, had passed, and those who were for prompt, energetic measures, which, just entering on administrative duties, they desired, were checked by the General-in-Chief.
[1] A son of Martin Van Buren and a lawyer of ability. The speech was made in the Cooper Institute, New York, at a meeting to ratify the nomination of Horatio Seymour as Governor of New York by the Democrats.
[2] General Scott’s expression as given in the letter referred to was, “Wayward sisters, depart in peace.”
Tuesday, 14th—No news of importance. We washed our clothes today. We have to haul our water about two miles, and it is poor at that. The horses and mules are taken by the men to water.
Camp Casey, East Capitol Hill,
Washington, Oct. 14, 1862.
Dear Free Press:
The health of the Twelfth is on the whole good. Some twenty-five members of the regiment are suffering from minor ailments, brought on in most cases by exposure on guard duty or sleeping in damp clothes; but with a spell of fair weather —thus far it has been rather cool, damp and variable—they will soon be on duty again. There has been but one case of a dangerous character, which terminated fatally last night.
We are giving strict attention nowadays to company and battalion drill, and shall soon be able to make a presentable appearance.
The Thirteenth regiment, Col. Randall, arrived yesterday afternoon, after a comfortable passage from Brattleboro, and has gone into camp to-day about half a mile west of us. It is to be brigaded with us and the 25th and 27th New Jersey, under command of Col. Derrom of the 25th New Jersey. We are for the present attached to Gen. Casey’s Division of the Reserved Army Corps for the Defence of Washington, and it is the general impression among the men that we may remain here for some weeks.
Of Col. Derrom I know nothing except that I am told he is a German by birth, and an old soldier. In his first order of duties for the regiment, “Evening prayer at 8 P. M.” has a place, week days, and he omits the inspections on Sunday which in many brigades make Sunday the most laborious day of the week. Our Sunday order, at present, is as follows: “Church call, morning, at 10.30 A. M. Divine service (voluntary) 11 A. M. Church call, afternoon, 3.30 P. M. Divine service, (positive) 4 P. M. All drills and parades except church and dress parade are omitted on Sunday.”
Our chaplain returned to us to-day after an absence of four days, having been under rebel rule at Chambersburg in the meanwhile. He left us at Baltimore to accompany a Vermont lady on her way to her brother, an officer in the Third Vt. who was lying at the point of death at Hagerstown; and was returning by the way of Chambersburg when the rebels[1] occupied the town. He thinks there were about 1500 of them. They were well mounted, and well clothed as far as their captured U. S. clothing went—the men under strict discipline and perfect control of the officers, who conducted themselves for the most part in a very gentlemanly way. Private persons and property were strictly respected. They left in a great hurry, amounting almost to a panic.
The chaplain being with us, the order for evening prayer was observed this evening. The regiment was massed in the dim twilight, and Mr. Brastow offered an earnest and appropriate prayer.
An order read at dress parade to-night, directs the captains to hold their companies in readiness to march at a moment’s notice. Forty rounds of ammunition apiece have been distributed to-day.
I find soldiering no lazy business, thus far, and have literally no time to write a longer letter to-day.
Yours, B.
14. Marched all night last night. Passed Bryanville at 2 A. M. Camp Dick Roberson at 2:30 A. M. Lancaster at 6 A. M. Marched eight miles, when we rested until midnight.
Corinth, Tuesday, Oct. 14. Having learned the locality of our Battery, it being encamped on the south side of the town, the wounded men were removed to the general hospital, and the sick were taken to the Battery, with the exception of N. B. Hood and Byron Babcock.
OCTOBER 14TH.—Congress adjourned yesterday at five o’clock P.M. I have heard nothing of Mr. Brooks and the Passport Bill I drafted. The truth is that, with few exceptions, the members of this Congress are very weak, and very subservient to the heads of departments.
Congress has given him (the President) power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus anywhere, until thirty days after the reassembling of Congress—and they have failed to pass the joint resolution declaring no power exists under the Constitution to institute martial law. They voted it separately, but flinched when put to the test to act conjointly; and martial law still exists in this city.
We have Northern accounts of a dash into Pennsylvania by Gen. Stuart and 1500 of his cavalry. He went as far as Chambersburg, which surrendered, and he was gathering horses, etc., for the use of the army, paying for them in Confederate notes. They say he did not disturb any other description of private property without paying for it. I hope he is safely back again by this time. The Northern papers claim a victory in Kentucky—but I shall wait until we hear from Bragg.
Gen. Magruder has been assigned to duty in Texas. What Gen. Johnston is to do, does not yet appear. A great many new assistant adjutants and inspector-generals are to be appointed for the generals, lieutenant-generals, majors, and brigadier-generals, having rank and pay of colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants of cavalry. Like the Russian, perhaps, we shall have a purely military government; and it may be as good as any other.
Gold, in the North, is selling at 28 per cent. premium; and Exchange on England at $1.40. This is an indication that the Abolitionists are bringing distress upon their own country.
The financial bill did not pass—so there is to be no forced loan. Neither did a bill, making Confederate notes a legal tender—so there will be a still greater depreciation.
Gen. Hardee is a lieutenant-general.
October 14. — The London propeller, Ouachita, was this day captured in the Gulf Stream, opposite Frying Pan Shoals, by the United States gunboat Memphis, Commander Watmaugh.
—A skirmish occurred at Stanford, Kentucky, between the advance forces of the Union army under General Buell, and the rear-guard of the rebel army under General Bragg, resulting in the retreat of the rebels, fourteen of whom were taken prisoners, a number of horses and guns captured, and a lieutenant-colonel killed.—Stanford was occupied by Union forces.
